Teresa picked another Hammer movie from her boxed set. And she served up home made pear and currant crumble, with lashings of custard, for pud’. Made with home-grown pears. Lovely!
The movie, Quatermass and The Pit, is an old Hammer film (1967). Based on a character created by Nigel Kneale, professor Bernard Quatermass, who became a BBC TV success (which also lead to spin off books!), it’s kind of sci-fi horror. Perfect Hammer schlock!
Not long ago we watched Brian DonLevy as Quatermass, in the 1957 movie Quatermass II. That was fun! Donlevy’s Quatermass has more charisma than Andrew Keir, who is somewhat eclipsed by some of his co-stars, James Donald and Julian Glover in particular.
As an aside, Kneale also did some very interesting sounding TV plays, including 1968’s Year Of The Sex Olympics, which anticipates the rise of lowest common-denominator TV and reality shows (and the ‘bating* culture also imagined/lampooned in the film Idiocracy). But – so far at any rate – Quatermass And The Pit isn’t that sort of social satire. Instead it’s that fun but rather pulpy style of sci-fi horror that’s conjured by all those paperbacks with garish covers from yesteryear…
* When masturbation has become a mainstream addiction/pastime.
Well, some time later… that was a bit slow to get going. And not, truth be told, terrific. But after a while, towards the end, things go properly mental! I don’t know that I like the film, to be honest. But it’s worth seeing, even if only for the last part, with… well, see the pics below:
To modern eyes the effects look lamely amusing. They really struggled when depicting global apocalypse, back in those pre-CGI days. That said, there are scenes that look like WWII Blitz style devastation. And such stuff was still a very recent and vivid memory/experience. But the whole ‘sky demon’ bit, right near the end? That’s still quite powerfully weird!
Not, for me at any rate, amongst my favourite Hammer movies. But still worth seeing.